Cerarmic materials, for example, dense alumina and silicon carbide, offer attractive applications as hard abrasion resistant materials. The utility of such hard abrasion resistant materials have been proven through use in abrasives, abrasion resistant linings, tooling and other advanced applications. The application area of abrasion resistant materials has widen in recent years to control erosion of flooring, reduce maintenance and down time in conveyors, charging chutes, dust collectors and in pneumatic conveying. Hard materials like zircon, garnet and various carbides with particle hardness over 1000 kg/mm.sup.2 cause erosion of the order of 10 g/metric ton of material in pneumatic conveying at the mild steel belt. Substitutes for such applications are in great demand.
The use of known ceramic abrasion resistant material, though on the rise, is limited by economic factors since most hard ceramics require quality precursor materials at high temperature processing. An alternative to this situation is in demand and requires the design of a new class of materials which is easy to manufacture, requires cost effective precursors and processing with sufficient and properties to meet the challenge.